


Peacock Dreams

by loveoftheimpossible



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: AU, General Booshy activity, M/M, Magic, Mention of possible shady relationships with a certain fox, Peacocks, Tumblr Prompt, Zooniverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 02:17:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3792886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveoftheimpossible/pseuds/loveoftheimpossible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a prompt by <a href="http://thecouchwitch.tumblr.com/">thecouchwitch</a> on <a href="http://derangedficrecs.tumblr.com/">derangedficrecs</a>:</p><p>Vince is a peacock with a crush on Howard the human zookeeper, so he trades one of his feathers to Naboo for the ability to become human at night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peacock Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> As soon as I saw this prompt, I was in love with it and hoped that someone would fill it. After a while, I got impatient and decided to write it myself. I hope I did it justice!! Also, Vince's hair is loosely based on [this lovely look](http://40.media.tumblr.com/fe07d0e1e60b36f572742b7d63dc1bbf/tumblr_nkddd4RyKm1twv40io1_500.jpg).

‘ _I’VE GOT SO MUCH TO GIVE!_ ’ Howard shrieked, clutching a rake for protection as he heard the rustling grow louder.  Under the flickering light, the bush shook again before a zookeeper uniform spilled from between the branches, landing in a heap by Howard’s feet.

It wasn’t until the clothes began moving that Howard realized that they were occupied.

Taking a closer look, he noticed the slim figure cloaked in the oversized uniform, pale skin reflecting the moonlight as a hand brushed leaves and twigs from dark hair highlighted with iridescent blue. Howard wasn’t entirely sure whether the hand belonged to a woman or a man, but when it reached out for him there was no hesitation as he took it in his own.

‘Are you new here?’ Howard asked once finished pulling the stranger to their feet.  Now standing, it was clear the creature from the bushes was a man with strange angled features and large blue eyes framed with thick lashes. _He must be new_ , thought Howard, _I would remember those eyes anywhere_.

The man swallowed before quietly answering. ‘Uh, yes.  First time on the nightshift.’

‘Welcome to the Zooniverse, then. I’m Howard Moon, the best zookeeper around. It’d be wise if you stuck close to me, I can teach you everything about the job, got all kinds of knowledge from my mentor, yes sir.  What’s your name?’

‘Vince,’ replied the man as he played with the too long cuff of his sleeve.

Howard nodded, finding that the name suited the man very well.  ‘How about you step inside my hut and I find you some of my old clothes, Bainbridge never gives anyone the right size uniform.  You’ll never be able to get any work done with cloth over your hands.’

 

~ * ~

 

‘Morning Vincent!’ Howard called, pouring feed into a small metal bowl before moving on to water, humming a jazz tune as he did.

Vincent ruffled his feathers slightly before trotting over to the zookeeper inside of his enclosure. The peacock had never allowed any of the other keepers inside while feeding him, but Vincent seemed to make an exception for Howard.

Once Howard had finished refreshing the water in Vincent’s bowl, he gently patted the peacock’s head how he knew he liked and pulled out a handful of assorted berries from his breast pocket, allowing Vincent to delicately eat the treat from his palm.

‘Have you met the new zookeeper yet? I think you’ll like this one,’ Howard chuckled.  ‘His eyes are almost as blue as you, perhaps you two could bond over that.’

 

~ * ~

 

With each night, Howard noted that Vince’s uniform gained a new decoration.  There were pins made from recycled bottlecaps, interesting trinkets from the bottom of the lost and found bin turned into something magical, even a small snail shell became a button on Vince’s jacket.

Vince only seemed to own one pair of mismatched shoes, and when Howard noticed, he offered to help pay for a sensible set. ‘Sensible’s not my style,’ Vince had answered, so as a one week working present, Howard wrapped up a pair of bright blue cowboy boots he found at the secondhand shop down the road. Howard smiled all through the next week when Vince showed up to work in them, boots perfectly complimenting his eyes.

‘You should come by for lunch sometime,’ Howard suggested one night.

‘Can’t, I’ve got a standing lunch date with someone special,’ Vince replied, fixing one of his pins that was crooked.

 

~ * ~

 

Howard quite literally ran into Mrs. Gideon, blushing impossibly pink as he realized she was now covered in peacock feed.  After Howard apologized profusely, she had asked who he was and his heart sank.

Vincent was already up and about, pecking at the empty bowls by the time Howard stumbled into the enclosure, curly hair a complete mess.

‘Sorry I’m late, I was busy making a fool of myself again,’ he explained, dumping the remaining contents of the feed bag into one of the bowls while staring at Mrs. Gideon, who was on her way to the reptile house.  ‘How does she never remember who I am?  Am I that forgettable?’

Vincent made a low noise in reply, fanning his feathers slightly as Howard poured fresh water into the other bowl.

‘You’re right, maybe I need to be more flashy,’ Howard said before realizing that Vincent’s usual treat had left a large blue stain on his pocket, berries crushed on impact from the incident earlier.

 

~ * ~

 

The following month, Howard had asked Vince to make him something that would catch Mrs. Gideon’s eye. They went through big plastic glasses, altered shirts, shiny jewelry, and bedazzled shoes, all with no success. With each failure, Howard lost a little hope, but it just made Vince try harder.

‘It’s no use, she’ll never notice me,’ Howard lamented, tossing a sequin scarf onto the couch in his hut. Vince’s eyes followed the metallic material as it floated through the air to land gracefully on a cushion.

‘Hey, don’t you give up on me now! You’re Howard Moon, Man of Romance!’ Vince supplied, knowing how much the zookeeper enjoyed such epithets, but Howard still shook his head.

‘Nobody even knows my name.’

Vince smiled sadly. ‘I know it.’

 

~ * ~

 

After another blackmail attempt from Fossil, Howard found himself doing all his chores without the use of any tools.

_‘It’s either you use your filthy hands as tools or I’m tellin’ Bainbridge you boinked the sneaky red cat,’ Fossil threatened._

_‘The fox?’ Howard put forth helpfully._

_‘Yeah, the fox, now scram!’_

Vincent squawked inquisitively when Howard showed up, hands caked in dried mud.

‘Fossil’s blackmailing me again,’ Howard answered.  ‘And before you say anything, I can’t quit.’

Vincent cocked his head, and Howard sighed. ‘I mean, I have responsibilities. Who else is going to sneak you berries? Plus, I’m a mentor, I need to stick around so Vince doesn’t get mixed up with the wrong crowd.’

Howard sat down on one of the rocks in the enclosure, feeling exhausted on all fronts, and Vincent rested his head on the zookeeper’s knee.

 

~ * ~

 

Howard had known from the beginning that Vince was attractive in a strange, otherworldly way, but didn’t really think much on it, instead focusing on trying to win over Mrs. Gideon again and again. With her away on holiday though, he had nothing to distract him from how Vince’s smile made his heart flutter like moths at a light.

‘Alright Howard?’ Vince asked, fingers busy primping and preening his hair while listening to an old David Bowie cassette he had found behind one of the dumpsters.  The blue streaks looked especially luminous on nights when the moon was full, almost as if they were a part of nature.

‘Yeah, just thinking,’ he responded, busying himself by raking some loose leaves into a small pile.

‘That’s your problem, you’re always thinking. Look at me, I never think and I’m always happy!’

‘You’re rather birdbrained, aren’t you?’ Howard joked, before looking up to see Vince tear up.  ‘That’s not what I —‘

Howard didn’t have time to finish his explanation, Vince was already gone, the darkness filling the space where a glow once was.

 

~ * ~

 

‘Why am I such an idiot?’ Howard said mournfully, not expecting an answer from the peacock still sleeping across the enclosure.

When Vincent did wake, he seemed to snub the zookeeper, even turning away when an offering of berries had been made.

Somehow that made Howard feel even worse than he did the night before.

 

~ * ~

 

Vince didn’t show up that night, or even the night after that.  None of the other keepers  who worked the nightshift had ever even seen Vince before, which was starting to make Vince seem like just a figment of Howard’s imagination.  On top of all that, Vincent was refusing to let Howard into his enclosure, screeching loudly in protest every time Howard got near.

Howard was starting to work himself into one of his trademark panics, and came to the conclusion that he needed some help. He found Naboo sitting in his little stall, listening to Fleetwood Mac.

‘You having another one of your nervous breakdowns?’ Naboo asked, looking up to find Howard anxiously shifting from foot to foot.  ‘My rates have gone up since last time, you know.’

After emptying his pockets, Howard followed the shaman into his stall, throwing himself dramatically onto the couch and covering his face with his large hands.  ‘I messed up, Naboo.’

‘Did Gideon find out you write little poems for her?’ Naboo asked after taking a hit from his oversized hookah.

‘No.’

‘Did you get caught bumming that fox again?’

‘There’s no proof I did that!’ Howard defended before changing the subject.  ‘I ended up hurting someone I….care about.  Unintentionally.’

‘Because you’re a ball bag.’

Howard sighed, sitting up. ‘Anyway, they haven’t been to work in a few days now, and I’m worried that they quit or something. Can you use your crystal ball and see if they’re okay?’

Naboo shook his head. ‘Can’t, Bainbridge popped my inflatable one again and shipping from Xooberon takes ages.’  Howard was beginning down his spiral of hopelessness before Naboo added, ‘But I can check the employee roster to see if they quit or not. What’s her name?’

‘Uh, it’s….Vince,’ Howard mumbled, clearly embarrassed about admitting his feelings for the mysterious man.

‘At least you moved on from bumming the zoo creatures to bumming the zookeepers,’ Naboo quipped, dipping through a curtained off area to retrieve the roster.

While waiting for Naboo to return, Howard finally had time to look around.  He always had admired all the strange artifacts strewn around the small back room, from glowing bottles engraved with foreign signs and letters to oddly shaped figurines with eyes that follow people around.  One of the figurines caught him off guard, a strangely angular man made of ivory with bright sapphires set into the eyes. The figure had a small hole in one fist, giving the appearance that he was holding a life-size peacock feather. Howard’s heart almost stopped, noticing how much the figure looked like Vince.

Naboo parted the curtains, a thick folder in hand as he sat back down across from Howard.  ‘Nobody employed here named Vince, at least for the past five years.’

Howard stood up, crossing the room to cup the figurine he had been staring at in his hands.  ‘He looks like this, I know I’ve seen him, he’s been here for months, I’m not crazy!’

‘Oh yeah, forgot about that,’ Naboo murmured. ‘There was a peacock that came by a while back, traded me one of his feathers for a potion to transform into a human at night.’

‘How do you forget something like _that_?’ Howard shouted.

‘I had a lot of hash cakes that day, it was all a blur.  But yeah, peacock came by, we did the trade.  Pecked a bit at that figurine, figured I’d use my magic to change ‘em to look like that.’

Part of Howard thought the story was outrageous, but the other part – somewhere deep in his heart – wanted it to be true. ‘But there’s only one peacock in the Zooniverse, and his name is Vincent, not Vince.  It can’t be him.’

‘Wow, you really _are_ a ball bag.  What is Vince short for?’

As realization hit him, Howard jumped up from the couch and ran towards the peacock enclosure.  Naboo just shook his head and sighed, watching Howard knock over several small children that were in his way.

 

~ * ~

 

The zoo was closed for the day, and it was just dark enough for the lampposts to flicker on.  Howard had been camped out behind a large shrub for hours, checking up on the peacock enclosure periodically through his binoculars.

Just as Howard was thinking that this was all some elaborate trick Naboo was playing on him, he spotted Vincent looking around his enclosure before making his way over to one of the rocks inside. Gasping, Howard watched as the peacock let off a faint blue glow that gradually became brighter, blinding him momentarily.  After rubbing his eyes, he went back to looking through his binoculars and swallowed thickly when he saw Vince where the peacock once stood, naked skin on full display once the glowing had faded.  Vince then quickly lifted up the rock he was standing by, pulling out his zookeeper uniform from a hole in the ground that had been previously covered and swiftly got dressed.

Howard averted his eyes while Vince clothed himself, deciding that it was the modest thing to do, and after a few minutes he went back to looking at the man, who was now perched on the rock, fixing his long hair in the reflection of one of his metal bowls. Though he wished to go talk to him, Howard was frozen behind the shrub, too scared to let Vince know that he had saw him transform.

‘ _Who knows?  Not me, we’ve never lost control…._ ’ Vince sang softly while running his fingers through a slightly tangled section of hair.  ‘ _You’re face to face with the man who sold the world…._ ’  Vince descended into humming, Bowie’s tune floating through the air around the enclosure.

When Howard thought about it, the song was very fitting for Vince to be singing.  Vince had changed his whole life for a chance at being human, even if it was for just a little while each day.  Deep in thought, he had neglected to notice the large beetle that was perched on his hand, and when he finally saw it, he let out a loud scream, falling through the shrub face first.  Vince immediately jumped at the scream, dropping the metal bowl with a clang as he rushed out of the enclosure.

Howard had expected Vince to run off into the darkness like he had a few days before, but he found himself being tugged to his feet by the slim man.  Unfortunately, the lenses in Howard’s binoculars were smashed by the fall, causing Howard to frown.  Vince gave a little cough to bring him out of his thoughts.

‘Oh, thanks.’

‘How much did you see?’ Vince asked cautiously, trying to hide behind his fringe.

‘Uh….everything?’ Howard responded awkwardly, staring at Vince’s cowboy boots to avoid having to make eye contact with him.

‘Oh,’ was all Vince could manage.

Hearing Vince sound so upset caused Howard to start rambling.  ‘I know this is all wrong but I messed up and said the wrong thing the other night and I was panicking when you didn’t show up to work and I thought you quit and I went to Naboo and he said you didn’t work here and that you’re a peacock and you made a trade so you could be human and I had to spy on you to make sure Naboo wasn’t messing with my head –‘

‘You were _spying_ on me?’

‘– well not _really_ spying I was just doing some fact checking and then I saw you transform and you were glowing and and and _naked_ and I looked away I promise and then I fell out of the shrubbery. I’m so sorry Vince, I was just worried that you had gone away.’  Howard paused, taking a deep breath to try to compose himself.  ‘I….I really like you, Vince.’

Vince moved the hair from his eyes, which were brimming with tears.  ‘Even though I’m….a bird?’

Softening, Howard moved closer, pulling out a worn flannel from his pocket and dabbing gently at Vince’s dripping icicle eyes. ‘Hey, don’t cry, it’s alright. You might be….well, a bird, but that doesn’t mean I like you any less.  Remember all those times we had?  Remember the lunch times?'

‘Yeah,’ Vince answered softly, a smile blooming on his face.  ‘ _Berry time, berry time, berry time, metal bowl…._ ’

Howard joined in, loosening up a bit. ‘ _Here comes mister feed bag, fill it to the brim…._ ’

 

‘ _Here comes mister feed bag, fill me to the brim_

_I am fresh water, oh!  I am salt water, no!_

_Fabric pocket holds the purple treat_

_Gentle peck at the grains at feet_

_Reflection there in the drinkable glass_

_Watching sad as Mrs. Gideon passed_

_The lunch times_ ’

 

‘Ohh, the lunch times…. Good times, good times,’ Howard remembered fondly.

‘What are we gonna _do_ Howard, I’m a peacock, I can’t even leave the zoo on me own!’ Vince exclaimed, smile already faded from view.

Howard thought for a moment before touching Vince’s shoulders, something very out of character for the zookeeper. ‘I’ve got a plan.’

 

~ * ~

 

‘NABOO!  _NABOO!_   NABOOLIO!  OPEN UP!’ Howard shrieked as he banged upon the door to Naboo’s stall. Vince stood a few feet behind, squeezing his eyes shut in embarrassment at how high Howard’s voice was getting with each passing moment.

After a few minutes, Howard’s face met the door harshly as Naboo swung it open, knocking him backwards.

‘What do you want?  I’m off the clock,’ Naboo said, glaring at Howard, who was busy rubbing his nose.

‘Alright Naboo?  Howard wanted you to make me a person forever, can you even do that? ‘Cause that’d be genius actually,’ Vince inquired.

‘Step inside,’ Naboo said, sighing. ‘I’ll be billing you later for this, Howard.’

Once inside, Naboo plopped back onto the couch while Howard and Vince stood beyond the table.

‘So, will you do it? Can you make me human permanently?’ Vince asked.

‘Yeah, but there’ll be a cost. Remember how you gave me your feather? Well, I’m going to need something else.’

‘Name it.’

‘I’m going to need your hair.’

There was a loud scream followed by a thunk as Vince passed out, unable to think about the loss of his beautiful hair.

‘Isn’t there some other way?’ Howard asked as Vince’s blue eyes fluttered open again.

Naboo shook his head. ‘No way, it has to be something that’s dear to him.  I can’t just take anything.’

Howard was just about to try and bargain with Naboo when there was a dull compression followed by a metallic slide. The pair looked at where Vince was seated on the floor, scissors in one hand and a clump of hair in the other.

 

~ * ~

 

‘Oi, get away from me offcuts box!’ Vince yelled before taking the red object from Howard’s hands. ‘Do you want me to be a peacock again?’

Every month since the deal was finalized, Naboo required a bundle of Vince’s hair to mix into a magical bubble bath, as per Vince’s request.  It was almost that time of the month again, and Vince was possessive of the most important ingredient needed in the spell.

Howard put his hands up defensively, giving a little smile when Vince put the box away somewhere safe. ‘You still want this? I thought I was a jazzy freak.’

Vince turned back towards Howard and gave him a small kiss.  ‘Yeah, but you’re _my_ jazzy freak, you berk. Can we have lunch now?’

Howard patted his pocket, full of berries, and smiled.


End file.
